If you look on the leaderboard there are more people using PAL instead of NTSC. Is there any advantages to PAL over NTSC?

Crash moves faster and jumps higher in PAL. PAL has lower load times too (edit: would probably only save a couple seconds over NTSC-U).

Yes, it does! With PAL it's easier to obtain the Red Gem directly from the main level. With NTSC is possible too, just a little bit more difficult.